


twice as many stars as usual

by atiredonnie



Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: Character Study, M/M, Post-Canon, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-10
Updated: 2021-02-10
Packaged: 2021-03-16 21:33:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29339100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/atiredonnie/pseuds/atiredonnie
Summary: You remember a story Mito told you when you were very young but still unfitting of the title of son-friend-beloved, of a girl who drowned herself because of something bigger than reason, bigger than God. Because there was something that whispered, down there in the pit of bad-thoughts, wrong-thoughts, that the final adventure was to die every death all at once.Gon returns to Whale Island, after everything.
Relationships: Gon Freecs & Killua Zoldyck, Gon Freecs & Mito Freecs, Gon Freecs/Killua Zoldyck
Kudos: 12





	twice as many stars as usual

In the end, you always come back to the sight of the sun in his eyes, flat and copper and lifeless. It feels like the sharp line of pain, filtered through love, filtered through grief. You promised Killua something special and what you leave behind is the sun, always the sun, a stifled sound like drowning. You open your fist and he’s waiting, left behind, glass-gold child soldier kisses scattered across the expanse of your palm. You wipe your hands on your shorts and walk forwards.

You come home to a mother that understands far too much about you. 

She takes your hands into her apron and folds them over each other, just-so, and looks at you like she’s trying to memorize the slope of your brow. When she exhales it is with the crack of a firing shotgun, and you flinch in spite of yourself. 

There are no words that can easily summarize the gap that spreads between her life and yours. Here you are, cut clumsily out of smoke and blood and dying, and pasted back into a world you don’t understand. You can’t understand. Everything burns, now. The crickets are far too loud. She brings her lips to your knuckles and you want to cry, except you don’t, because your cheeks are still ruddy with salt from the last time you wept and you don’t want to remember. Mito gathers you up like a sack of rice and you feel so small, so ungainly, wrung dry and stuffed full of thoughts that threaten to bubble out of your ears. You bury your face into her shirt. There is an amount of snot that borders between acceptable and copious. You reiterate the not-crying, but you do blubber. Mainly, you just feel cold and warm all at once, and Mito releases you too quickly and not fast enough. 

Mito has been fishing, waiting for you, and the pantry and freezer overflow with salmon and carp and pike, diced and filletted, in chunks and in clusters. The garden is fat with feasting bugs and tangled overgrowth, and you put yourself to the task of picking through it with hands that feel so much smaller and cleaner than they ought to. You do not think you will forget the sound of crushing a head into nothing, less than paste and less than putty, and the way the noise resembles that of a melon smashing as it hits the ground is something you learn over and over and over again, by rope, by apology, by promise. 

You remember a story Mito told you when you were very young but still unfitting of the title of son-friend-beloved, of a girl who drowned herself because of something bigger than reason or God. Because there was something that whispered, down there in the pit of bad-thoughts, wrong-thoughts, that the final adventure was to die every death all at once. And down in the pit of bad-thoughts, wrong-thoughts, there was another muttered notion, that being that she couldn’t deserve anything other than the falling, and the great nothing beyond the falling. And maybe she was crazy, but you think you understand needing to know what’s behind the curtain. You have only ever been worthy of the final journey. 

You don’t tell Mito these thoughts, because her forehead would scrunch up and she would start to cry into her arms, scrubbing uselessly at her face, and you would stand there and comfort her as something hot and ugly like rage but not quite filled you upwards from the pads of your feet. The feeling is not something she’s equipped to bear, so you eat it with sun-stained hands like a wild animal over its own carcass. 

You dream about braiding Killua’s hair, long and white and soft like mourning doves, and the back of his throat is so raw it looks brand new. He turns to you and smiles, wildflowers and stray feathers smeared down his front, and his grin grows wider and wider and wider until he’s nothing but an infinite string of rattling pearl teeth. But you’re not scared of him, never scared of him, only scared of the way he touches you, tremorous, reverent, like you’ll disappear if he blinks too quickly or too much. It makes you feel something you can’t possibly imagine having words for, something bright and hot, the bellows of your stomach creaking with joy, almost like jumping off that one smooth and intimidatingly tall rock behind the house, the one that juts out accusingly and rigid, over the river, and that feeling of weightlessness you can’t summarize with just your hands and your words. It’s not raining, not yet, but it smells like it’s going to and you know this and Killua knows this because he knows you, so he stands up and traces your temple, firefly-swift and aching beneath the skin, pink and gold and blue, and then he’s gone, leaving nothing but steaming argon behind. 

And you’re alone, and then you’re not because you’re awake, and Mito is in the house somewhere, embroiled in her own sleep, which means it should feel okay, deep in your lovelorn gut, but it doesn’t, it feels like something is compounding, something with mandibles and cold shining eyes decorating the space behind your windowsill. It’s too early in the morning to be awake, but you are tired of listening to your body and the sea-songs it croons, the staccato of longing. 

You walk gingerly downstairs, all carmine and rose from the barely-rising sun, creeping into the slenderness of the hallway. Mito has been baking bread, and the kitchen smells like flour and newly-delivered milk. You stare for a minute at the organized chaos of it, everything everywhere and yet exactly where it needs to be, and feel like you’ve been sucker-punched by something very strong. 

Outside it is chilly, bordering between goosebump-weather and simply intolerable, and you wonder where the heat goes when the sun sinks into the water, whether it drains out of the air slowly or all at once. You imagine that if you shift your stance, you could maybe feel a hint of it beneath your bare feet, languishing beneath the soil, ready to overflow come high noon. 

There is a foxbear in the garden. 

It pauses as you turn the corner, bulging with stolen tomatoes, eyes cartoonishly wide in a parody of surprise. It takes a quivering step back, once, then twice, before deciding to fluff up and growl at you, desperate and low and starving. Calming wild things is very deeply in the range of familiarity for you, and so you step forwards, arms extended, an admission: This is what you are. 

This is what you are, you tell him, hungry down to the bone. Not a threat. Just a boy. 

The foxbear snarls just once as you continue to edge closer, closer, olive-steaming hands reaching out, a silent plea. You can almost smell the argon cracking open the skyline, a warning that your thighs will soon become flush with rainwater if you don’t hurry. You lean forwards - 

_Blue-black blood pleading screaming fire roasting meat lightning-eyes and terror-lunges, a dance that swells and swells and swells until it bursts -_

The foxbear practically trips over itself in escape-desperation as you quiver, body tender with memory. You bury your head in your hands. You do not touch the ground. 

Somewhere softly dreaming, you are everywhere else, and the abyss loves you more than you love the sun. 

It loves you like a carnivore. It takes you apart, starting with your apple-round heart, starting with your shame.


End file.
